Without a doubt, Muhammad Ali was one of the most recognized African Americans during the 1960s. From being one of the greatest, if not, the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, with having to battle the racial differences in America, representing his fellow African Americans and even going to court for refusing to serve for the draft in the Vietnam War due to his own morals and beliefs. Along with aiding people by spread awareness about Parkinson’s disease as well as providing treatment and support for research. Muhammad Ali has forever influenced and transformed the sport of boxing along with being an advocate and an iconic symbol to several generations of Americans. His legacy and the things he has done and accomplished ended up shaping …show more content…
After Muhammad Ali, or Cassius Clay at the time, had knocked out Sonny Liston in the opening of the seventh round. He announced in his post-fight ring interview of his allegiance to the Nation of Islam. Thus, changing his,“slave,” name of Cassius Clay to the iconic and memorable Muhammad Ali. Years following his conversion to the Nation of Islam, he went from the heavyweight champion in the ring, to the people’s champion for speaking out against the injustice and racial discrimination towards African Americans. Ali was considered a Civil Rights leader, assisting Martin Luther King Jr. There are even rumors stating that MLK had drawn a little bit of an inspiration from Ali due to his charisma and his character. He would usually speak out, especially towards the press, against racial tensions down in the …show more content…
“I’ve got Parkinson's syndrome. Now they can say,‘He’s human, like us. He has problems.” (Gale). But after all the controversy about Ali’s Parkinson’s, he decided to capitalize on this and used his popularity to try and raise awareness for Parkinson’s disease. Dr. Michael Okun who is the medical director of the National Foundation states that,“Before Ali, there wasn’t that much known about Parkinson’s disease.” Most people would mistake Parkinson’s for other disease like ALS or Alzheimer's, but Ali made it so that people would be aware that this is a major issue that needed to understood. In the 1990s, Ali began to heavily advocating for the increased government funding for Parkinson’s disease research and even donated majority of his earnings so that scientists would receive research dollars for Parkinson’s. He even started his own annual event called, Celebrity Fight Night. This too was to raise money for research and he ended up making around $100 million in donations for Parkinson’s. In 1997, Ali helped establish Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center at the Barrow Neurological Institute. For the next ten years, there were more than 23,000 research articles concerning Parkinson’s disease were published in scientific journals. And because of this, many centers, including the Muhammad Ali Parkinson’s Center, are now using mental and physical exercises for treatment for Parkinson’s
What they did not know was the self proclaimed greatest in the world was planning the one of the greatest changes in his life. Behind the scenes Cassius was studying Islam, he became good friends with Malcolm X and studied under Elijah Muhammad. Cassius took the name Muhammad Ali, saying he did not want to be called by a slave name any longer. He took Muhammed from the first prophet of Islam with the name meaning worthy of being praised, and the last name Ali which meaning is to be elevated. During a time where racial tensions were high people had a hard time accepting his new name. Often times the media would continue to call him Cassius, one didn't famed ABC sports reporter Howard Cosell, he respected Ali, because he too had changed his name from Cohen a Jewish name to Cosell, because in those time it was also a disadvantage to be Jewish. In 1965 Ai was scheduled to fight Floyd Patterson, who insisted on calling him Cassius, Patterson paid a big price for that, there is documentary footage which shows Ali giving Patterson the beating of a lifetime, making sure not to knock him out taking him through all 12 rounds repeating “now what’s my name
Jackie Robinson was the first black major league baseball player. Most people know this, but they don’t realize how much of an impact he actually had. He did so much more outside of baseball. Jackie, like Rosa Parks, refused to give up his bus seat when he was in the army. He gave inspiration to many people of color in the United States.
Many people, like myself, after watching an episode of “The Michael Jay Fox Show,” started to be come curious as to what exactly this disease is. You ask yourself; What is this disease? What causes it? Can it be passed down from generation to generation? Is there a treatment? What would your life be like suffering from this? Through my research on Parkinson’s disease, I am determined to answer these questions. I hope to have a better understanding on this disease, and how it affects the lives of patients that I might see in a hospital.
history in the 1950's and 1960's by hitting the society. Ali was a great boxer who was very confident in his boxing game. Ali wanted to make a change in society by trying to get rid of the racial discrimination in America. Ali was also against the war in Vietnam. Ali said “Unless you have a very good reason to kill, war is wrong.” Ali sent messages of hope to the African American community by telling them to have pride. Ali said “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people while so called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?” Ali said “The Vietnamese had nothing against him” (Schwartz).When he was drafted to fight in the war, a lieutenant called Ali by his real name, Cassius Clay, and he said, “Sir that isn't my name, my name is “MUHAMMAD ALI!” Ali said, again “Sir that is a slave name my name is “MUHAMMAD ALI” (Muhammad Ali [HH:MM:SS]). After that, Ali refused to serve in the Vietnam War. This lead Ali to the Supreme Court, and he was five years in imprisonment. Ali was precluded from the athletic commissions for fighting in the United States for three and a half years. Even though Ali was released from his five year sentence, he still had a jail sentence of four years, which was overturned by the Supreme Court (Schwartz). Ali was also stripped of the heavyweight boxing title because he refused to serve in the draft Following his suspension, Ali reclaimed
According to the book mentioned on the last page, Ali’s example was an inspiration for countless African Americans. In the book Kareem Abdul – Jabbar is quoted saying, “I remember the teachers at my high school didn’t like Ali because he was so anti – establishment and he kind of thumbed his nose at authority and hot away with it. The fact that he was proud to be a Black man and that he had so much talent . . . made some people think that he was dangerous (Citation). According to Kareem Abdul – Jabbar people at the time would started to question African Americans because of how they went against the authority. Furthermore, the book goes on to discuss how Ali inspired Martin Luther King, Jr. During the time period of the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King, Jr. was reluctant to focus on addressing the Vietnam War for a fear of parting away from the Johnson Administration and the administration’s support for civil rights agenda.
Cassius Clay, also known as Muhammad Ali, was devoted to boxing at a very young age, along with school and family. Cassius Clay, Jr. son of Odessa Clay and Cassius Clay Sr., was born on January 17, 1942(cite). Cassius Clay, Jr. was an African-American and a descendant of pre-Civil War American slaves (cite). Clay and his parents lived in Louisville, Kentucky, where his dad had a job as a painter. His family was not wealthy. Clay’s mother made sure that they went to church and Sunday school each week. As a child, Clay attended the Virginia Street Elementary School, and may have suffered from dyslexia (Christopher 12). He started boxing at the age of twelve, weighing 89 pounds. Later in his life, Clay converted his religion to Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali ("Muhammad Ali"). Ali has been married four times and has nine children, two sons and seven daughters. In 1984, Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (cite).
Ali proved to be a strong-willed individual that did leave a huge impact on America, but what impact had increased as time continued and his faults have been somewhat forgotten. Those believing that Muhammad was more of a hero than Jackie Robinson most likely feel that Ali’s action of standing up against the United States government, when he was drafted, was an act of courage and bravery. The main reason why Ali didn 't wish to go to war in Vietnam was because he believed he shouldn 't be fighting for a country that ultimately didn 't support his own people within its own borders. Ali has developed into a figure of courage after the time that his happened. In the 1960s when this originally happened, Ali had more enemies as a result of his religious and social views and ideas than fans. Today we see that what he did may be considered heroic, but back when it actually occurred, Ali was seen as a nuisance to America. He was spreading word and influencing people to act against their own country in a time of war. Since Muhammad Ali’s retirement from boxing the course of time has faded criticism of Ali and left mostly just the positive parts of his life and career. As a society we’ve buried the controversial side of Ali’s existence in our minds and history simply remembers his greatness as an athlete. Robinson had an impact on
Although Jackie Robinson was not the best African-American baseball player of his time, his attitude and ability to handle racist harassment led the way for the rest of his race to play Major League Baseball, amongst other sports. Being accepted into professional sports also helped African-Americans become more easily accepted into other aspects of life. Jackie's impact in the world for the black population is enormous.
At first, Muhammad Ali had no intension of boxing. After his bike was stolen, in the month of October 1954, when he was twelve, his whole life was set. Upon finding out that there was a police officer in the basement of a gym, Ali went down to the officer in a shocked state of mind demanding a "state wide bike hunt" for hsi stolen bicycle. But all the cop told him to do was to learn to fight. and that
Muhammad Ali is an example of an athlete who used politics in sports to advocate for the Civil Rights movement and protest the war. As an Olympic gold medalist, heavy weight titlist, and many other victories, he used the fame for humanitarian efforts. Ali refused to serve in Vietnam due to his religion and as a result, he was stripped of his 1967 title. He retired in 1981 with an incredible 59 wins and five losses, but he will always known as symbol of courage, will power and strength, not for his career milestones, but for breaking racial barriers.
Muhammad Ali, whose birth name was Cassius Marcellus Clay, was born in Louisville, Kentucky January 17, 1942. He was named for a white, Kentucky abolitionist, Cassius M. Clay, and received the name Marcellus from his father’s name. Ali’s father, Marcellus Clay was a mural painter who did a lot of work for many churches in the community and his mother Odessa (Grady) Clay was a domestic worker. As a young boy, Cassius Clay was full of energy and carried a loud mouth wherever he went. One day when Ali discovered that someone stole his bicycle, he became enraged and made loud threatening comments by exclaiming that he would “whup whoever stole it.” Upon hearing these threats, Louisville police officer Joe Martin persuaded Ali to take out his frustration in the boxing ring rather than on the dangerous streets of Louisville. At age 12, Ali’s boxing career had officially begun.
Boxer Muhammad Ali, was born as Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., on January 17, 1942, he was the son of Marcellus Clay Sr. and Odessa Grady Clay. He lived in Louisville, Kentucky where he experienced discrimination and racial prejudice towards himself and his family, which led him to his fascination towards boxing. Later in his life, he would win the Olympic gold medal for boxing in 1960 and became the world heavyweight boxing champion in 1964, and was the first fighter to recapture heavyweight champion three times. But Clay was not only a boxer, he was also a philanthropist and social activist with astonishing effrontery, he spoke out against problems such as race, religion, and politics that cause him to become such a controversial figure.
Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. later known as Muhammad Ali, was a black boxer, and was proud of it. Many African Americans were ashamed of their color, but Ali was different. He was the first boxer to win the Heavyweight Championship 3 different times. He had a great personality and was liked by the people. During his life, he made big decisions that changed the course of his life completely. Muhammad Ali's journey through life was a great inspiration for African American people, but Ali himself deserves the admiration of everyone.
His bold public persona described or showed what was happening in Clay's personal life. However, Clay did some soul searching and he decided to join the Nation of Islam, in 1964. The Nation of Islam was a black Muslim group. Clay went with the name Cassius X, but he later changed his name again to Muhammad Ali. Two years later, he picked a fight that did
Muhammad Ali is an example of an athlete who voiced his political ideologies in sports to advocate for the Civil Rights Movement and protest the War. As an Olympic gold medalist, heavy weight titlist, and many other victories, he used the fame to project his humanitarian efforts. Ali refused to serve in Vietnam due to his religion and as a result, he was stripped of his 1967 title . He retired in 1981 with an incredible 59 wins and five losses, but he will always known as symbol of courage, will power and strength, not for his career milestones, but for breaking racia...